""" = ° »12He fished a crumpled cigarette butt from hisshirt pocket and, after carefully straightening it,lit it and coughed. The end of the room where hestood was bare and the daylight strugglingthrough the smoke and dirty window panes col-lapsed at his feet, leaving him stained with shad-ow. Particles of dust from his stirrings languishedin the feeble rays of light. He shuffled closer tothe window and peered outside.She hadnTt liked it. Even when Axton told herthat he wouldnTt press charges, wouldnTt have herarrested; she hadnTt liked it. She only looked athim and Axton, seeming to say without speaking,oYou'll be sorry for this, donTt you know who myDaddy is, he could buy and sell this place tentimes over.? Looking like she had been slappedfor no good reason, she had stalked through thedoor as though she didnTt feel the stares of theothers in the store, as though she didnTt know orcare that her name would still be on their lips thenext morning.And he hadnTt wanted to tell, might not havetold if he had looked closer; might have risked anight without any if he had seen before tellingthat it was SutlerTs daughter. But he had neededit and Axton had given it to him in the big bottleinstead of the little one that he usually bought; asthough Axton figured that it was the least hecould do; figured that a big bottle might be somerefuge from what Lucas faced now because he hadneeded it and taken it, even though it wasSutlerTs daughter who had paid for it.Lucas flicked the cigarette to the floor andstamped it out. He knew that Sutler knew aboutthe pecans, knew who it was who slid down thecreek in a canoe and crawled up the bank to thefence bordering the long rows of pecan trees,knew who it was who carried off sometimes thirtyor forty pounds and sold them to the supermar-ket, knew, too, who would sometimes take achicken that had strayed too far from the coop;knew that the only man to see the smoke that daysix years ago, smelling it before seeing it becausehe was half drunk fishing on the creek bank, theman who had reported the fire to the volunteersand so saved most of SutlerTs house and his sleep-ing daughter, was taking his reward in his ownway after refusing the money Sutler had offeredhim.So Sutler had said nothing to Lucas for fouryears, had done nothing, had pretended not to seehim the times he stumbled upon him lying drunkon the creek bank with a cane pole, a burlap bagfilled with pecans, and a pile of chicken bonesscattered around a smoldering fire. But the fifthyear, Sutler began to watch the pecan grove morecarefully. He had a new steel wire fence erectedaround the chicken coop and let it be known intown that he thought someone had been stealinghis chickens; as though by that he was warningLucas properly that he felt the debt had beenpaid, as though he was giving Lucas the chance toacknowledge the payment without having to betold.Now, there was no gratitude left. There wasonly the shotgun carried over the shoulder andthe scowl and the promise to oget that god-damned wino whoTs been stealing me blind thelast six years.?TAnd for Lucas, there was only a little left in thebig bottle that SutlerTs daughter had paid forwith her name the night before. Lucas grunted asthe image of SutlerTs menacing glare dissolvedand was replaced by the gleaming bottle on thewindow sill. The bottle cap rattled when it hit thefloor, and the wine sloshed gently against thesides of the bottle as he drank in long, slow swal-lows. When he finished, he ambled to the wallopposite the window and placed the empty bottleat the head of a row of smaller duplicates. Heshuffled back to the window and scratched theweek-old stubble on his chin.Sutler would know by now how his daughterhad bought a bottle of wine for the man who hadrefused his money, the man who wouldnTt bebought into silence. Would know and wouldswear to use his gun the next time instead ofmerely shooting over the head of the half-drunk,half-crazy man coaxing a stubborn fire with adead chicken lying on the ground beside him; theman who had saved SutlerTs house and little girlsix years earlier when Sutler was two miles awayin a dirty bedroom with that same half-drunk,half-crazy manTs wife. Would think, oI wasnTt theonly one, and what did the bastard expect any-way, drinking and staying away all the time. Awoman like her was going to have a man and IwasnTt the only one, but ITm the only one paying.Six years of hearing the talks and whispers be-hind my back; six years of wondering if it wasGod or the devil tipping his hat and laughing atme with a bag of pecans and a dead chicken in hishands; and now, shaming my daughter and get-ting a bottle for it.?